FMDJ,
As usual your post is chock full of great factual and historic information, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on this.
There were many good, conservative candidates that ran last November in MA. Like I've posted scores of times, folks like Sean Bielat against Bwaney, Karyn Polito for MA Treasurer and Mary Connaughton for MA Auditor and they all lost soundly.
These are good people and were fine, fine conservative candidates who ran in spite of a MA GOP that makes the architect who came out with “New Coke” look like a genius.
The problem is too many people here are on the dole; it's a symbol of systemic failure in nearly all "Blue" states. The leaches will vote themselves "Bread and Circuses" until they collapse. The sane producers are hopelessly outnumbered, period.
I’m sorry, I was talking about the actual state party leadership. There obviously were good candidates, but the party leadership under these elitist snob Socialist buffoons is content to keep the party in permanent moribundity. Wresting control from the likes of Nassour & Crew with real, committed grassroots types (and I don’t mean folks like Peter Torkildsen who come in making ludicrous, undeliverable promises of winning majorities in a single cycle and quickly running off when nothing happens) who can make good, solid incremental gains over time (how the Dems climbed from moribund status to super-majority) is the way to begin to turn things around.
Just a couple of minor points. Few said that Sean Bielat wasn’t a good candidate, but it was going to be hard regardless, because it simply is a Dem-heavy district. Even a superb candidate can lose based on party demographics in an area (compounded by the fact that there’s no viable GOTV party presence to aid said candidate). Had Bielat run in another district that was more GOP-leaning, he might’ve pulled out a win (as it was, an astonishing 6 out of the 10 districts had our candidates get within 4-17% of winning, the best showing in decades).
As for Karyn Polito, she lost by less than 10% (also an excellent showing, all things considered), the execrable Baker by just over 6%, and Mary Connaughton did the best of all, losing by just 2%. In a Dem state where the GOP registration is nearly non-existent, these are not “solid” Dem wins, but very weak holds which (again, on registration) should’ve been 30% or higher blowouts. Don’t forget we also took two open seats on the Executive Council in districts we haven’t won since the ‘70s or earlier with Charles Cipollini in the Fall River-based 1st and Jennie L. Caissie in the 7th (Worcester/Central MA). We haven’t won a single seat on that board since 1990.
Considering how outnumbered and outmatched we are from on-the-ground people to $$, that’s an exceptional showing. Remember, too, I warned last year not to get too excited where MA was concerned with respect to gains. There is much work to be done for the long term to continue to chip away, and starting with cleaning out our own party of traitors and dead wood is #1.